Olympic Highlight

So, I’ve always generally been a big fan of the Olympics. It gives me a chance to root for a bunch of people I don’t know and have nothing in common with except that they were born in the same country as me. I become the biggest patriot around, and I’ll watch anything that Canada is involved in. I swear, I’d watch Olympic nose picking if Canada had medal hopes. Digging for gold, and the like. But anyhow, I treated to a real highlight last week while watching women’s snowboarding. They have an event where 4 people race down a small hill at the same time. Great idea if you like crashes, bumping, etc. It’s like roller derby on ice. Pretty entertaining stuff. Anyhow, in the final were 2 Canadians, an American, and a Swiss girl. One of the Canadians fell down early, and the other one got pushed out by the Swiss girl. The American girl came out clean, and was miles ahead nearing the final jump. At this point, she decided to show off and do a snowboarding trick on her way over the jump….and fell. The announcers are screaming their disbelief as the Swiss girl goes flying by for an unlikely gold medal.

Now Supersport is the satellite sports channel that provides this coverage with UK announcing (listening to the UK announcers pin the British hopes on some guy in 18th is like watching the Summer Games in Canada). Their coverage has been pretty shoddy so far, with more repeats than actual live footage. But in this case, it has allowed me to watch this fateful and highly entertaining highlight over and over. And to top it off, they’ve taken to showing a replay of the fall to the tune of “American Idiot” by Green Day. Pretty funny stuff.

Despite this, the more I watch the Olympics, the more I think how sad it is to watch. If you’re expected to win and do, then you’re ho hum. If you’re expected to win and don’t, it’s devastating. And for everyone else who doesn’t win, it’s shades of disappointment, with the exception of the few “just happy to be there” or “hoping to make the top 10” stories that don’t get much press. But I see tones of agony and disappointment, for every glimpse of happiness from the few surprise winners. It’s interesting to watch. Plus, many of the sports are ridiculous. How do you ever decide to devote your life to pole vault, or luge, or any one of 1000 different skiing disciplines? What does an Olympic gold mean? You performed well on one day for a few seconds? How do you know there’s not people out there who would be way better than you if they had only tried your sport? How many Olympic sports would Michael Jordan have been the best at if he had tried them? How many hockey players could be champion speed skaters if there was money in it, and they trained for it?

Well, I wrote the bulk of this post a week ago, and now the Olympics are done. Pretty good show by the Canadians, except for men’s hockey. It’s weird watching the winter Olympics and sweating in the sun at the same time. But I’m not complaining.